Inside Out

100

Winter approached the lodge as stealthily as possible, finding it remarkable that there were no guards posted between the two buildings. The fact that there had been a gunfight and no one heard anything was testimony to the quality of the soundproofing Manelli had installed.

Almost every window inside the building was lit. A green van and three SUVs were parked across from the lodge in a small clearing. In the photo taken from space, which had reduced everything to the shape of its surface, Winter hadn't been able to see that there was a covered porch entirely wrapping the second floor. The lodge was built so the ground floor was half as large as the second. Steel beams supported the end closest to the canal. The only way up to the porch from the ground floor was by means of a staircase located beside the front door. Just before he made it, someone sitting on the steps in shadow lit a cigarette. If the man hadn't been a smoker, Winter would certainly have walked right into him.

Winter crouched and made for the back of the lodge. Looking up as he approached the building, Winter clearly saw the old gangster pass by an upstairs window. He made his way around the far side and came up toward the front, looking for a way inside.

Winter heard conversation and the sounds of dining, so he passed a sliding glass door and peered into the lit kitchen from the cover of night. He counted four guards, all wearing handguns. A pair of shotguns leaned like umbrellas against the wall by the door. He figured perhaps there might be more men upstairs and probably more watching the road.

Winter carried three full ten-round magazines for his. 40-caliber SIG Sauer. He had loaded Yul's second magazine into the man's Browning Hi-Power giving him fifteen 9-mm rounds, which in addition to the partially used magazine gave him another eleven. He had eight rounds in the old Walther PP, giving him a grand total of sixty-five bullets, each one a potential death sentence. Winter doubted that Sam would have more men than he had bullets for.

He had not considered taking up any of the long guns, because he knew before he left the boat shed that he was going inside the lodge and any shooting would be at close range. If Sean was alive, she was going to stay that way-not be killed by Sam in response to Chet's assault team arriving or by an errant shot from a long gun. Inside the building, a rifle bullet could go through a man and still travel through walls to hit something. Indoors, a shotgun blast could spread. 30-caliber lead balls until something solid stopped them. That something solid was not going to be Sean. And, the fact was, he was a far better shot with a handgun.

Without backup, he couldn't walk straight in through the front door with a gun in each hand-there was no way he could control so many men at once and be free to do anything but guard them. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and allowed himself a mental picture of finding Sean alive and well, of taking Sam Manelli hostage and using the threat of killing the old bastard to hold off his guards until Chet's assault force arrived.

Winter went back to the door leading into the darkened room next to the kitchen and slid it open silently. He had the SIG in his right hand already, so after he closed the door, he pulled Yul's Hi-Power from inside his belt. Illumination coming into the bunk room from a slightly open hallway door allowed Winter to make out the line of bunk beds and the shape of a man lying asleep in one of them.

After crossing the room, Winter stood at the hallway door, listening. A split second before he moved out into the hall, he heard the hard-soled shoes of someone entering the hall from the kitchen.

He moved quickly aside, flattening himself against the wall beside the door.

The man pushed open the bedroom door a few inches and called in, “Angelo, get your ass up!” before he returned to the kitchen. Angelo got up and ambled into the bathroom, closing the door behind him.

Winter slipped out from the bunk room, crossed the hall, and started carefully up the staircase that led up to a central hallway. At the top of the stairs he peered to his left around the corner. The opposing walls rose to the vaulted ceiling that peaked twenty feet above. There were two doors on each side of the hall. Beyond the hallway's throat, edged with vertical rough-hewn cypress beams to support an arch of the same material, was a great room. What Winter could see of the living room included the back of a couch and overstuffed leather armchairs arranged before a massive fieldstone fireplace centered in a wall of window glass. Winter decided to find a door that would allow him to get out onto the porch so he could see into the great room. The acoustics were such that Sam's loud voice filled the hallway as if he was using a public address system.

“Where's Spiro? I thought you went to get him,” Sam growled.

“He's with two of the new guys watching the back gate. He'll be back soon.”

“I think the boy should have paid more attention to his school and less to that weight-lifting rigmarole.”

Winter was almost at the closest door to the stairwell when Manelli crossed the room and stopped, framed in the archway. In person, Sam Manelli was a living illustration of dynamite coming in small packages.

All the aging gangster had to do was turn and he would be staring at a stranger thirty feet away holding a pair of pistols. Winter didn't want to do anything until he had located Sean, but if Manelli turned, he would take the man hostage. If there were more people in the great room sitting silently, or if Sam was to yell out for the downstairs guards, it could get bad. If Sam yelled, Winter would run into the room and perhaps shoot everybody there. Sam walked away without turning. Relieved that he didn't have to shoot Manelli yet, Winter put the Hi-Power in the small of his back and slipped through the nearest door.

He entered a dimly lit bedroom, stopping beside a partly opened closet door. Ahead, he saw a bed with the covers disturbed. What must have been a bathroom door was closed, but light leaked out from under it and he could hear water running in the sink.

He heard footsteps moving down the hallway and someone tapping at the door before opening it. Winter slipped into the closet, eased the sliding door almost closed so he could peer out through the crack and ready himself. As the door closed, Winter saw Sam Manelli's profile, less than two feet away.